`Distressed` Goetz Won`t Talk To Jury

March 27, 1985|By Michael Coakley, Chicago Tribune.

NEW YORK — Described by his lawyer as ``very distressed,`` subway gunman Bernhard Goetz refused to testify before a Manhattan grand jury Tuesday after arguing with a prosecutor over how much immunity he should receive.

The walkout deprived the white electronics engineer of his chance to relate his version of the shooting of four black youths aboard a city subway train last Dec. 22.

Goetz`s last-minute decision not to appear before the panel came as the jurors` investigation of the incident drew to a close. They are expected to vote on an attempted-murder indictment Wednesday or Thursday.

Lawyers for Goetz, 37, said they had advised him not to testify when it became apparent that prosecutors were trying to ``stack other charges``

against him. Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert Morgenthau responded in a statement that Goetz had wanted to ``unreasonably and unfairly limit the grand jury`s inquiry.``

In a letter to the grand jury foreman, Goetz said he was willing to waive immunity from prosecution for anything he had said about the events on the day of the shootings.

But according to Goetz`s lawyer, Barry Slotnick, the prosecutor indicated he wanted to question the defendant about ``anything and everything that he so desired,`` including ``the purchase of guns in Florida.``

Present in an anteroom as his lawyers bargained with the prosecutor, Goetz never entered the grand jury chamber.

``He was distraught; it was painful for him,`` Slotnick said in characterizing his client`s frame of mind.

Goetz`s letter to the jury foreman included a plea to accept his terms for testifying.

``I beg of you to allow me to come into the grand jury room so that you will hear the whole truth about the horrors that I have faced at the hands of other of your witnesses who have received the benefit of full immunity,``

Goetz wrote.

Two of the teenagers who were shot by Goetz, James Ramseur and Troy Canty, have testified before the grand jury in recent days, both of them under grants of immunity. All four of Goetz`s victims have criminal records.

The first grand jury impaneled to hear the case declined the prosecutor`s request to indict Goetz for attempted murder, choosing instead to cite him on minor firearms-possession charges.